


Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away

by okoyee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Character Death, Horror, M/M, Mild Gore, they told me to kill dan for once so here it is, this story really fucking dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:45:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoyee/pseuds/okoyee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan used to say that life was only being fair when it had plans to be even more unfair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away

 

 

Him and Dan are different in many ways.

Ying and yang, they are within the same _circle_ , per say, but they're on the opposite sides. Phil likes to think of it as Dan is a worrier and Phil may be a worrier at times as well but he more so worries about what they're going to have for dinner, who's going to buy the groceries and when he should post his next video. Not about how life is pointless and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, not ' _when I die, I'll simply be dead and all that was with my name with die with me_ '. Everything else about them had morphed into some relative sameness in the past 6 years. Their likes, most of their dislikes—because Dan doesn't buy the things Phil really hates aside from the occasional cheese—and Phil sometimes spends time reading articles about scientific facts about long term friendships and couples showing signs of developing into each other because he can _relate_.

Dan and him may be different, but they are slightly the same. They have the same speech patterns, they eat at the same times, kind of sleep at the same times—unless Dan is panicking in his room at 6 AM—and do the same things as work. Their days revolve around each other, despite how annoying it gets at time. Sometimes Dan will pick on him a bit _too_ much and Phil snaps, sometimes Phil leaves all the lights on and Dan begins to nag, sometimes Dan touches something he shouldn't and Phil get's touchy about it. But it comes with time, and him and Dan are in a good place now. They got a good job, they have good friends, they even have some friends that aren't _both_ of their friends.

Life has evened out, Dan has become as happiest as Daniel James Howell can be and Phil likes to watch everything unfold like a flower blooming and he was the gardener that harvested it all. Dan isn't his project, he isn't selfish and egoistical enough to assume it was _all_ him, but he definitely helped Dan along the way. Phil, for a long time, struggled with his own pain so he was happy to bring about happiness in another person. They're sitting on the couch, ankles barely touching as Phil tries to find the remote and then Dan coughs.

It's a small cough, barely even a cough, and Phil hadn't even thought twice until he was straightening his back out and looking to where Dan is cradling his mouth, blood pooling into the palms of his hands, eyes wide and afraid. Phil thought to himself first, _I can fix this_ , and then googled quickly ways to stop oral bleeding until they got to the ER.

_I can fix this_.

He could fix himself and Dan mentally. He can fix this.

 

 

 

 

 

The one thing about being flatmates for such a long pain in the ass time is that after around 5 years eventual you know _everything_ there is to know about the person you're living with. Phil knows where Dan keeps all his ID, has Dan's parents numbers, his grandmothers number, he knows all those top-secret government issued ID numbers to make sure Dan can actually get into the ER without paying a single cent. Dan was rushed in relatively quickly, 5 minutes of waiting until Phil looked scared enough, Dan now crying as he tries to stop whatever he can, and a nurse had quickly saw and ushered Dan, _alone_ , past the doors.

Phil suddenly feels small. He always feels small in comparison to Dan, and is always slightly shocked when he's around anybody else and suddenly he's the tall one. It always is an odd feeling, like shrinking and then growing, growing and shrinking. But this feeling of smallness is different, a sort of hopeless feeling Phil has just learned to associate with ' _Dan_ ' creeps into his mind and it chokes him. The nurse tells him that right now Dan is 'not allowed visitors' and makes him sit down, she tells him nothing aside from the bleeding may have to do with his lungs (Phil feels light headed, lungs, lungs are really fucking hard to fix) and asks for Dan's familial contacts. _Familial_ contacts. Phil almost wants to cry. He'd been to the ER once before and they had definitely _not_ asked for his familial contacts.

Phil opens his mouth to ask, ' _Why_?' but instead it comes out as, "I'll contact them."

He calls both of Dan's parents, not really surprised to find he's sent straight to voicemail. They probably have his name saved as ' _Satan_ ' or something on their phones, Dan says it doesn't bother him, but it sure as hell bothers Phil. He shakes off the feeling, clearing out his throat as he says. "Dan and I are currently at the ER, the nurse had asked me to contact you so I'm assuming it's important. Get back to me whenever you can, Phil."

The nurse had disappeared at this point, filling out any papers she needs and Phil jolts in surprise when she calls over the line ' _Phillip Lester, please come to the front desk_ '. He waddles, knees feeling weak. What if Dan died in there and they want him to sign morgue papers? God they'd probably make him do it too. In the eyes of the law him and Dan are common law, he technically _owes_ anything Dan owes. Including Dan's body. He inhales sharply, just as the nurse is scribbling down some sharp cursive words, "Spouse of Dan Howell?" She asks curtly, and Phil wants to go ' _no, just a friend_ ' but decides against it, what if he can't see Dan because he's just 'a friend', what if suddenly they have to wait for Dan's missing parental support to sign all these dumb papers?

"No, common law," Phil says, voice hoarse. "Is he alright?"

"Sign those papers, he'll most likely need to be stay for a few days. Sign your name there, there, and there, please give me two pieces of government issued ID and make sure to write your insurance number clearly."

Phil grips the pen, and realizes, she hadn't really said a yes or a no to his question. _A no then_ , he deciphers well enough. Being around Dan has taught him people simply walk around their words when they don't want to hurt other people. ' _I don't_ lie _Phil_ ,' Dan would say, eyes rolled all the way to the top of his hairline as he sinks into the couch, smile taunting, ' _Simply just make the truth harder to find_.'

Phil would always frown and say it sounds like lying, but Dan never likes criticism to his own character. Sometimes Phil would say it, sometimes he wouldn't. It all depended how bad of a mood he was prepared to put Dan into. He signs his name at the very bottom, the end of the pen leaving the paper with a slick tilt before it all becomes quiet. She taps at her keyboard with deliberate harshness, looks at Phil, searching almost. Phil wonders if he should smile. "Occupation: Youtubers?" Her mouth thins, almost as though she's thinking before she slaps down the paper and says in a shrill quiet voice, "Aren't you two those hosts from the British Awards? I saw you both on TV. Darling things. Oh," she moans, tapping away some more as her head shakes, "Oh how terrible."

_How terrible_.

Phil's heart honestly sinks into his stomach, if it wasn't already there, or maybe it drops to the ground.

"Well his bleeding has stopped and they plan to run a bunch of tests, don't know what's wrong just yet. Could simply be a dental issue, you never know. If you go past that door you'll be able to go see him."

Suddenly it feels okay again. Dental issues? That's able to be fixed. Dental issues make a lot more sense. Of course only Dan would end up with _dental_ issues and make it into such a big deal that his whole mouth honestly bleeds. He heads off into the direction Dan was wheeled off into, gravitated towards the bed in which Dan is awkwardly fiddling with a string on his blue hospital gown. Dan perks up when he enters the room, "Oh thank _god_ I was dying of boredom in here."

"You could've died," Phil jokes back, "What would I do then?"

"Eat all the cereal without interruption. Now," Dan makes grabby hands, "Give me my _phone_ Phil."

"Don't say we're in the hospital," Phil says lightly, as he pulls up a chair to the side of Dan's bed. It feels weird, like this is his last moments with Dan, like Dan is some dying uncle. It feels surreal, but he hangs tightly onto what the nurse said ' _dental issues, dental issues, dental issues_ ' even if he's never prayed before he can start now. He'll begin praying every goddamn night, he just needs it to be dental issues. "I said you were my common law at the counter, I feel like this is going to come back and bite us in the ass."

" _Phil_!" Dan groans, slapping his phone onto his lap, "What's the point in me bleeding from my mouth if I can't even _talk_ about it without somebody finding out you admitted to being my common law?"

"Well you are," Phil squawks in defense, looks to his own phone and realizes he hasn't even called Dan's grandmother yet. "I called your parents, call your grandmother."

"Common _law_ ," Dan groans, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Yes, from purely living together no—"

"I called your parents."

Dan falls silent, lips pressing against each other as his expression becomes harsher, more not-Dan. The type of look Dan associates with people he hates, people he's angry at. Even when Dan is pissed at him he still has a airy look to his expression, Dan is never _too_ harsh—by his standards—even now, Dan fiddles silently, trying to determine which level of anger he should press Phil with.

"The lady at the front desk told me too," Phil pauses, looking to where a doctor is muttering to a nurse outside Dan's room, "I thought it was super serious."

"Hey," a lanky looking doctors says, wrists thin and lips curled right at the corners into a cremated frown. Phil's mother used to say the face you give to the world is how you'll be treated, and the face this woman was giving him gave him the impression that she was not to be treated nicely. But, Dan is a firm believer in wholesome niceness, and Phil is too tired to be mean right now. "Daniel Howell?" She looks warily to Phil, expression almost searching, "And you must be Phillip Lester?"

"Yup, that's us." Phil chokes out with familiar niceness that all those soap opera wives, the _good_ ones, always give to clerks and the like. _A nice, young and established kind couple._ That's the illusion he wants to grant this doctor, not _two friends that talk to themselves on camera for unhealthy amounts of time_. She nods sharply, flipping to the next page before she's slipping a pen out of her breast pocket and holding it outwards to Phil.

"Sign here and here, Mr. Howell would it be fine to have your spouse be the one to make decisions regarding you and your medical treatment if for any reason you are unable to make the decisions yourself?"

_Spouse_.

Phil feels slightly accomplished, as though he won the award for 2016 Best Actor and suddenly him and Dan are thrown on set and this isn't real life. Dan and Phil aren't this serious, they aren't people that visit the hospital or have to sign serious papers regarding the other's safety. Phil hovers over the papers, looking to where Dan suddenly has a very pensive look on his face, all previous irritation wiped out instead a silent look of worry plastered there instead. Phil is suddenly gravitating closer to Dan, ready to bounce back any sort for negativity that might try to crawl in through his pores.

"Yeah," Dan slips his phone onto the bedside table, he reaches out and taps Phil's hip softly, "Go ahead."

Phil scrawls his name on the doted line quickly, writing out the digits to his phone number and feels winded, pressured and _uncomfortable_. Suddenly it weighs on him, if anything does happen, he'll be in control of what happens to Dan. Usually it's the other way around, Dan making the choices for Dan and Phil, not Phil. Phil doesn't make the right choices when it comes to Dan, he just can't. He can be the support and he can repair, but he make final decisions by himself. It's a flaw, a default in his system to simply lean to his right, and _pop_! like a magical spell, Dan will always be there.

"We don't think it's anything too serious but we'd like to keep you here the night," she rattles on professionally, stops for a brief second to grab the paper from Phil and nods sharply to herself, "We'd like to take a urine and blood test, watch you for the night and send your home tomorrow. If nothing serious shows up you won't be hearing from us again, when your lab results come in and if there's anything we should be concerned about we'll give you a call."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They never get a call back.

Weeks pass and Phil falls back into pace with Dan, Dan doesn't puke up anymore blood and it all settles. By the second week they go to the dentist, who nags Dan to floss more, says ' _probably had a blister or a splinter, silly lad_ ' and everything reverts. They finish their book tour, they keep their gaming channel going, Phil even manages to update his channel _twice_ in a month. They become so happy, so happy.

Phil is lying in bed one night when he thinks to himself, something Dan had said a few years ago. Whenever Dan would end up in a good situation he would end up cowering, fear rattling into the very deepest part of his marrow, _be afraid be afraid_ , Dan used to say it was because life was never being fair for the simple reason of being fair: life is only happy when it plans to make you even more unhappy. Phil had thought of it as absolutely stupid, why would life do that? If that was the case, Phil could imagine humanity being within a hamster cage, everybody running around in their own cages as The World sits there, poking it's finger in, disturbing the peace, not for any particular reason, just to be cruel.

Phil likes to think there's no point in being happy if it doesn't last. Sure life sometimes has it's sad points, but there's happy parts and sometimes you just have to accept the sadness before moving on. Dan can't grasp that concept, Dan doesn't accept sadness, he embraces it, dances with it and invites it into his most inner thoughts. Phil is always scared one day the bad thoughts will sink in so deep Dan won't be able to flush them away anymore. He's scared that one day Dan will look in the mirror and realize if he reaches out, ever so slightly, he can slip into something he can never rise from again. Sadness is very deep and complex unlike happiness. Happiness is fleeting, like a girl skipping around in a field of flowers, the moment is beautiful until she tires. Sadness, sadness is never ending, it's depths are deeper than the ocean and darker than the universe without stars. Once your toes are curled over the edge of the universe, people are compelled to jump into the void: they become consumed by it. Devoured.

Blackness, Dan would call it his aesthetic, but Phil doesn't want to watch his friend slip into blackness. He's seen enough people do it to know how it ends. And it's never a happy ending. He inhales sharply, then exhales, hugging his pillow to his chest as he flops onto his side. _I'm just being a worry wart_ , Phil decides on. He knows, rationally, that Dan would never kill himself. Dan isn't selfish enough for that, but he doesn't want Dan to be sad. At all.

"You can't fix people Phil," he mutters sleepily, into his mattress and stares up at his ceiling, glow in the dark stars twinkling, "Dan's problems are Dan problems. Not mine."

He closes his eyes.

He knows it's stupid, and there's no reason to the feeling, but he feels like crying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He calls his Thursday headaches Linda, Linda the headache.

"Is it Linda?" Dan asks, spoon shoved in his mouth, a bit of dribbled drool hanging from the corner of his lips as he tries to pick up a pen to scribble something on a notepad. Dan is always like that, struck by sudden ideas of what to make a video out of, Phil is the opposite. When he feels like it, he turns on the camera and just talks. Happy little talks. Talks about his day, talks about Dan and him, talks about what he likes. Happy things. Phil nods, pinching his thigh before leaning into his hand, and then promptly regrets pinching himself because it actually ends up stinging. Dan arches an eyebrow up at the action, amused expression flittering over his face, just as the pen falls from his lips and clatters onto the counter. "Did that hurt?"

"Oh shut up," Phil whines, stretching out his toes, before curling his body forward into it's natural slouched position.

Linda used to be a headache that came every four months, now she comes with a forceful knock on his noggin every second week, she stings the forefront of his thoughts, comes back roaring and angry. It makes his head feel inflated, like an overstuffed teddy bear, stuffing poking out from the seams it was sewed at. Dan has mentioned, a few times, very subtly that maybe Phil should consider telling their doctor about the headaches. But it seems stupidly unnecessary to Phil, why would the doctor care about his headaches? So _what_ if he get's headaches?

"We have that party tonight, you know?" Dan says, creases forming on his forehead as he scribbles a little poo and then a heart beside it on the corner of his note jotting. Phil doesn't understand how those two ideas relate, but decides not to comment on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan is standing shoulder deep in crashing salty water.

Phil exhales just as body parts begin to float to the surface, little finger tips bobbing like apples in barrel, big toes circling around Dan just as his eyes fall out, mouth sewn shut. Phil wants to scream, except the water sploshes into his open mouth, suffocating him as Dan's fallen eyes look at him, glossy glare in all their glory. Suddenly he's falling, falling, falling, falling until he hits the ground, his chest expanding as he gulps for air, eyes snapping open, arms held out in front of him.

Dan is looking at him, cup of coffee held awkwardly in his grasp, his other arm twisted at a painful angle because Phil had begun to pull on it. Phil groans, grip becoming loose as he rolls onto his back, hands covering his eyes. He never falls asleep on the couch. Definitely never falls asleep on the couch for an _entire_ night. Dan looks torn between making fun of Phil and actually showing some level of concern. Phil wants to tickle up Dan's arm, make him smile, tell him it's alright. But is it? Dan's eyes had looked so scared in his dream, glossy glare of his fallen eyes floating on the water's surface with a knowing look.

"Bad dream?"

"Bad dream."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I'm worried about Phil lately," Dan says, voice hushed as he leans into the kitchen counter, one of his arms crossed over his chest in a protective manner. He looks as though a shattered woman, crouched into herself, face ashen, drained of life because life had just kept taking and taking and taking from her. Phil blinks, the illusion of an exhausted looking Dan fading into what reality really is: Dan sitting there, idly plopping little cooking chocolates on his tongue as he mutters quietly into the phone to Louise, Phil assumes.

Ever since the bad dream Phil has been getting headaches every second day. More bad dreams following, and once, Phil had even found himself sleep walking. It was 5 AM when Phil had wandered into Dan's room, holding an object Dan refused to tell him what it was. Phil had his suspicions that it was a knife, or maybe a fork, because the dream he had that night was of Dan stabbing Dan until his chest was torn open, heart beating slowly in the open air. Ever since that incident Dan had taken to locking his bedroom door, and Phil had taken too locking his as well. Sometimes he wakes up, standing in front of his door, nail marks dug deep into the wooden door with his finger nails bleeding.

The first time it happened he had wrapped each of his fingers individually, and refused to look Dan in the eye.

Dan chews quite loudly, and Phil crouches against the wall trying to get a good angle in which Dan's voice floats across the house, "He came into my room with a freakin' knife, how can I not be worried?" Another crunch, Dan sighs and Phil can hear the muffled voice of Louise chattering about something, "Another time I came into the living room, his hands bleeding from clawing at the fucking _door_ and he was talking about drowning or something. I swear to god, it's almost Halloween and I swear to fucking god Phil is possessed. Do you think I should have him exorcised?"

How many times has he clawed at walls in his sleep?

It's almost terrifying how little control he has over himself anymore. Everything is told through tales, through the remaining of what he had caused. The nightmares have been getting worse lately, more violent, more terrible, more _scary_. The more nightmares he has, the more his lungs inflate with the thought of Dan drowning beneath his own sadness. How can he save Dan from himself? What can he do to keep away these scary dreams?

"Maybe I should take him to a psychiatrist," Dan muses idly, his voice finally falling serious, "He's seems really depressed lately."

Him? Depressed?

He feels like he heard enough of the conversation, plus, if Dan caught him it'd just leave an awkward rift between the two of them for a little while. And anything is better than that. Dan needs him by his side, at this particular moment specifically. His dreams sometimes tell of the future, and if Dan is going to drown he'll have to be the rope that is tossed into stormy sea's to fetch him back to shore. He can't lose Dan, not now. Not ever.

Why was his headaches getting worse though, why has he suddenly been sleepwalking so frequently? Before he did sleepwalk, but it would be simple sleepwalking, go around the room once or twice muttering to himself before he got back into bed by himself. That was never unusual: but now he's showing violent behaviour while sleepwalking, that's distressing Dan.

He muses on the idea of therapy. He see's it as unnecessary for himself, aside from his sleepwalking, but he feels the sleepwalking is simply distress caused by the dreams of Dan killing himself, the lingering constant fear that one day he'll open the bathroom door and find Dan floating in a pool of his own blood in the bathtub. _What about joint therapy_? Phil pauses at that idea, it would be comforting to find Dan at therapy with him. He could hear Dan's innermost thoughts, the _real_ thoughts, not the simple humanitarian rants that evade people into not opening up his chest and savaging for the real bits of his personality. Dan is always like that, evasive and smart. The type that says a lot, but says nothing at all.

He promptly decides then, as he get's up, making noise as to alert Dan that he's approaching, watches how Dan tells Louise ' _to wait a second_ ' before covering his cellphone with his hand and looking to Phil.

"If I'm going to therapy," Phil says pointedly, and the Dan that stares back at him is the Dan from his dreams glossy-eyed and dead, "You have to come with me."

"Joint therapy?" Dan says, his voice sounding somewhat dubious of the experience before he slowly uncovers his phone and is bringing it back to his ear, "Well, whatever you want."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much to Phil's dismay, the therapist doesn't seem to think much of Dan. In the light of day, the lamp heavy as it shadowed across the 'couple' therapist's face, her eyes directed to Phil as though he's an interesting case of crazy. Dan picks up on this immediately. Phil doesn't speak much, Dan does most of the speaking for him, and at one point the therapist _asks_ Dan politely if he could leave the room for a moment.

"So, you've been sleepwalking?" Is her first line of topic, clipboard placed beside her on the small coffee table, elegant but simplistic as though not to throw off the fragile balance placed within this tiny suffocating room. Maybe it's all to seem comforting, but all Phil can do is feel anxious that Dan is outside the room, this is not what he wanted. He needed Dan to be the one picked apart, and then once Dan was finally fixed, Phil would stop having the terrifying nightmares. Phil smiles hesitantly, and nods sharply. "What kind of nightmares?"

His mouth feels dry.

"They're just nightmares. I'll just go call Dan back in—"

"No, I would like to speak to you privately." She cuts in sharply, pen scratching against her page in odd fever. Phil wants to snap at her ' _Idiot, you aren't_ —' but decides to slowly sit himself back down, hands nervously wringing in front of his lap. "As Daniel said apparently you entered his room with a knife, and you've both started locking your doors, as a safety precaution, but you've continued to hurt yourself quite violently if the state of your finger tips is anything to go by. Now, usually for sleepwalking I would suggest medicine, but considering you've never shown any previous violent behaviour before I'm assuming the nightmares are a trigger, which were triggered by a stressful event." She pauses, flipping to the next page in her notebook, lips pursuing in thought, "I spoke to Daniel on the phone before this appointment and he said these episodes began after he was admitted to the hospital for puking up blood—" Phil's chest contracts, feeling the world spin before him, "—Could that have begun to trigger the attacks?"

She finally comes to a halt, pen tapping on her page as she looks to Phil. "What are your thoughts on what I just said?"

"You spoke to Dan on the phone before this?"

Her eyes narrow, quickly jots down more notes and then looks up briefly at Phil. "Yes. He said that you would be most likely unwilling to exchange any information with me, so he simply told me his observations, I'm assuming he knows you quite well for him to realize the correlation between his hospitalization and your nightmares."

"Yes," Phil looks to the photo in the corner of the room, it's a potted plant, purple and pinks all in pastel colours. It's almost soothing. He feels cornered, not sure if he should just admit that she's most likely right, or maybe he should evade the direct question. But she's a _professional_ , she's not Dan or his friends, she'll see right through him if he tries to change the topic. He swallows harshly, picking at the skin by his thumb before tentatively saying, "I'm just worried."

"What are you worried about?"

The Dan from his dreams resurfaces right before his eyes—wide brown eyes, afraid, petrified, begging to Phil for help, glossy and dead as the rest of Dan's body sinks below the water, deeper and deeper, away from Phil's reach and he is just so _scared_ —he jolts into realization, hands trembling and looks to the woman before him, feeling sunken himself. How could he explain it to her? What can he say so that he can make her _understand_?

"Dan," Phil says finally, his voice wheezed as he avoids her eyes, "Used to say that life was only being fair when it had plans to be even more unfair."

She doesn't write anything down this time, taking a moment to put aside her notepad.

"I would like to refer you to another psychiatrist, but I would like for you and Daniel to continue in seeing me as well."

Phil jolts up at this, as though thoroughly _shocked_. He had just told her something Dan had said in the lowest moments of his life, when his lips where bleeding, looking frightened to Phil for advice, a slip of his tongue, his truest feelings and she had brushed it off. She saw something wrong with _him_. She crosses her legs, leans backwards and waves her pen towards the door. "Please call him back in."

Phil swallows, feeling rebellious as though he should shoot up and shake her into understanding, but obeys her orders. Dan enters not looking to anything but Phil, smiling encouragingly as though trying to be the rock Phil can lean on in a time like this. Phil wants to tell him immediately that this therapist is a fake, that she can't be a professional if she can't even see the deeper meaning to something that simple, but then she shocks him. As soon as Dan sits back—rightfully on Phil's right, and Phil feels relaxed again—her notepad back in her hands, she asks quite bluntly:

"Daniel, have you attempted suicide before?"

Dan doesn't even blink.

"I guess, but not really. I was just really depressed in my first years of university, but I've solved through those problems."

"I see, I'm glad to hear that." Her nails are long and red, and Phil wonders where she could be leading up into this. "And was Phillip directly involved in this solving of those issues?"

_Now_ Dan seems slightly wary, shoulders tensing as he looks to Phil. "Are you implying that—"

"I'm under the belief that Phillip is worried of your death. It's a common anxiety, especially amongst close friends or relatives that had someone near they die or attempt suicide at some point in which they were directly involved in the situation, and your hospitalization must have triggered this paranoia again. But to be on the safe side I would like to refer Phillip to another psychiatrist."

"Safe side?" Phil asks this time, he doesn't try to refute her earlier claim of anxiety towards death because it's _true_.

"I would like to hear more about your dreams. Does Daniel frequently die in them, or is he killed?"

"Killed."

"By who?"

"Himself. I don't understand why you want me to see another psychiatrist though, I'm fin—" Phil feels himself freeze up. He slipped up. Dan shifts uncomfortably, guilt settling easily on Dan because the sudden burden of responsibility. Dan will feel that Phil is unhappy because of _him_ , Phil feels frozen, wants to chant _no, no, no, no no no no_ clasp Dan's face within his hands and remind him that even if the whole wide world is against Dan he'll still be here. He'll always be here. "I'm just scared because of the hospital thing, Dan—"

"Do you have hypothesis towards why you're clawing at the door?"

"What do you mean? You said it was anxiety!" Phil rises at this, feeling practically fed up. She's antagonizing Dan, he won't just let her undo all of his stitching. He's worked for _years_ to build Dan up to what he is now, he will _not_ stand her unfurling his work. He places himself between her and Dan, fist clenching tightly a building coil of hotness in his stomach and then—

And then it all dies as Dan drags Phil downwards, soothing him back into the sofa.

"Usually clawing at things during sleepwalking is associated with suppressed aggression," her glasses gleam in the light, and Phil can't see her eyes, "Do you tend to have episodes like that often? Or have they only happened a few times and quite seriously?"

_Episodes_.

"I don't have _episodes_." Phil grits out, inhaling and exhaling, _calm calm calm_ before slowly shrinking himself away from the anger. It can't be good for him to unravel before her so easily, she's only been pulling at threads and he refuses to give her anything more. He thinks back to university, to the bleeding nose someone had left while bullying one of his friends. He had seen black, and then he had woke up to red staining his knuckles.

"Of course," she says patiently, "Then have you had an incident in which you were protecting somebody and ended up in a situation where you could not avoid violence? I would like to know how you felt when you were finally aware of what you had done."

Phil feels detached, he remembers how the bone cracking underneath his punch had felt. He felt powerful, and then he felt guilty. What had he done? He almost forgets but it floods before him like the opening of a dam, "I asked him if he'd like me to call for the ambulance."

"What were his injuries?"

_Death_.

"There were no injuries, I guess."

Her eyes flicker up at this, hand seizing in realization.

She flips her notepad over, looks to the clock and places her hands protectively over her lap.

"Here's the number of the referral. I would like if you went and saw him as soon as possible. I would suggest until the issue has been resolved that you both continue locking your doors, and make sure your front door and balcony are both locked as well, as it may be dangerous. You may want to lock all potential weapons away at the end of the day as well."

Phil says his thanks nicely, and Dan looks between them as though he had missed something large and is unable to grasp the situation. Phil is half-way out the door, looking over his shoulder as he realizes that she had tip-toed upwards to whisper something in Dan's ear.

Dan doesn't say anything the whole ride home after that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He loses time.

It happens in a single moment, one moment he's washing dishes and in another he's standing in the living room, eerie and creepy, tall and threatening. When he comes too, Dan is standing half-way across the room from him, eyes looking to Phil with fear, phone clenched heavily in his hand. Phil blinks, wonders if he had somehow fell asleep while doing dishes and get's rid of the absurd thought. It's only later that day as he googles what had occurred does he realize he had lost time.

The disorders that follow the lost unsettles him.

He decides to call the psychiatrist at Dan's insistent—terrified—nagging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day before the appointment Phil finds his fingers dragging against Dan's bedroom door, blood smeared all across it, nails torn and practically broken in half, and Phil realizes that he had forgotten to lock his own door. He stumbles backwards, terrified at the dried blood that smears his hands, caked and painted onto the white door of Dan. He's mostly terrified with _himself_. What if Dan had forgotten to lock his door as well?

"Dan—" Phil croaks, feeling the onslaught of tears suddenly pooling from his eyes as he collapses to the ground, he hears a timid shuffle from behind the door, and Phil wants to scream at all the sudden crazy of all this. Wasn't he supposed to keep Dan happy? Now all he's doing is aggravating Dan—all he's doing is, is... His shoulders shake, holding his torn hands before his very eyes to look at what he's done.

What if he hurt Dan?

Oh god, he would never be able to forgive himself if Dan was ever hurt by him.

"Phil?" Dan calls, Phil hears the beginning of the door being unlocked, before it's re-locked. "Are you awake? I need you to be completely awake because you're going a bit—"

Phil hiccups out a dry laugh. "No," he says, fingers blurring before his sight, "Don't come out."

_I don't want you to see me like this_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dan of his dreams is warm, he smells like sulfur and his blood stains Phil's hands.

Floating in the bath tube, wrists slit open, fingers desperately trying to dig into Dan's eye sockets to pull them out so Dan cannot see what he's let himself fall into. If he's going to turn black, he will not let Dan see which side of Ying and Yang he is. He needs to be Dan's light, even if it means ripping the light away from Dan in a literal sense. He wonders why Dan is dead in the bath tube in this particular dream, did Dan kill himself again? How many times must he watch Dan die, how many unsuccessful deaths must he bear witness too? These are the emotions that flood through him, finally the glossy slimy wet feel of Dan's right eyeball jolts him awake.

Except his hands aren't stained with his own blood.

Phil doesn't scream.

_I can fix this_ , he thinks desperately feeling drowned as he stares at the mess he's created. Eyes bobbing like little bath toys on the surface of the bloody water, Dan's fallen eyes look at him, glossy glare in all their glory, turned to look at him in a haunting dead way, they seem like they  _know_ ; stuck in a never ending look of horror as he probably had when Phil had reached out and plucked his eyes like cherries from a tree. Phil gulps for air, the slosh in his chest suffocating him,  _I can fix this_. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> They told me to kill Dan for once, so here it is. Also, people always seem to assume that Dan is depressed in their little fanfictions, but in this story I play on how Phil 'assumes' Dan is the depressed one and ignores his own depression. I was thinking of going into more depth with Phil's craziness, but I got bored of writing this, so here it is. Enjoy it for what I tried to make it out into being LOL 
> 
>  
> 
> Halp me


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